Eddie won’t fight in the UFC, and may never now that he’s locked into Bellator most likely until he retires or starts to see serious decline.

Bellator has done tremendous damage to their reputation with the way the treated Eddie. Plus they’ve completely thrown out their original, successful business model and started doing the well documented failing model of hiring UFC cast offs, doing PPVs, and giving instant title shots instead of doing their patented tourney route.

and Chandler, if he wins, will here how Eddie wasn’t that great anyway (you know MMA fans will say that shit.) and will be locked in so tight to Bellator that he’ll never get out. He will be thought of as “good” and may even crack the top 10 once in a while, but will never get the accolades he deserves. He’ll basically be the new Aoki of the division.

I know Bellator can’t sustain itself as a feeder org to the UFC, but this just seemed like the wrong fight to pick when they could have just sucked up this loss, continued on the path they were on (not this new one) and in a year or two, been a viable alternative to the UFC for many veterans and up and coming fighters. All this damage over Eddie Alvarez.

Agree or Disagree: 00

]]>By: Angry Mikehttp://fiveouncesofpain.com/2013/08/13/eddie-alvarez-michael-chandler-ii-booked-for-bellator-ppv/#comment-299850
Wed, 14 Aug 2013 17:09:40 +0000http://fiveouncesofpain.com/?p=82990#comment-299850Sounds to me like Bellator basically agreed that Eddie’s pre-lawsuit contract wasn’t comparable to what UFC offered in terms of potential ppv earnings. Bellator is now entering the ppv market, and Eddie gets a piece, and that’s a material change from what Eddie had before. Now the question I have is whether Bellator would have entered the ppv market without Eddie’s lawsuit, or whether its time frame for entering the ppv market was expedited because of Eddie’s lawsuit. And let’s see how the ppv performs. I’d like to see Eddie fight, but not enough to pay a UFC price. There’s a certain nostalgic interest in watching Tito fight Rampage, but I wouldn’t pay much for that, either.

(i) for Fighter’s first Bout under this Agreement; and (ii) for any subsequent Bout thereafter in which Fighter participates in a Bout and is defending a UFC Championship belt, so long as such applicable UFC event is broadly distributed in the United States and/or Canada, or any other territory, including via the internet, and so long as the rates charged in said territories, or on the internet, are comparable to those charged in the United States or Canada, on residential pay-per-view on iN DEMAND, DirecTV, Echostar, or similar pay-per-view provider as utilized by ZUFFA (“Pay-Per-View Providers”), then Fighter has the potential to receive a pay-per-view bonus. If such UFC event exceeds specified buy rates of combined sales through Pay-Per-View Providers, Fighter shall receive a Pay-Per- View Bonus as follows:

For combined Pay-Per-View Provider buys purchased within thirty (30) days of the live event, Fighter shall receive One dollar ($1.00) for each pay-per-view buy between 200,000 buys and 400,000 buys; and Two dollars ($2.00) for each pay-per-view buy between 400,000 buys and 600,000 buys; and Two dollars and Fifty Cents ($2.50) for each pay-per-view buy over 600,000 buys.

So a couple things…

1) The UFC was guaranteeing Eddie one PPV cut. If he’d lost his initial title bout, as Gilbert Melezdez did, that would have shut off the PPV bonus until Eddie had managed to capture the belt and then once he was defending it for the first time the PPV bonus would have kicked back in. Plenty of potential there, but in terms of the guaranteed contractual terms it was only one PPV bonus.

2) As I touched on above, what if instead of including PPV bonus in Eddie’s deal they had instead shifted that $$ to a massive signing bonus? They were guaranteeing him a PPV cut for his first fight. Let’s say they assumed that first PPV event w/ Eddie would do a respectable 500K buys. Based on the bonus scale detailed above, Eddie would have received a PPV bonus of $400,000 (a buck for each buy between 200-400K and then 2 bucks for each buy from 400-500K). I kinda doubt Bellator would have matched a signing bonus in the neighborhood of half a million dollars, but who knows.

But anyways, what’s done is done. Eddie will make a significant amount of money, he’ll get plenty of exposure as one of Bellator’s primary attractions, and the rematch with Chandler should be a doozy.

Agree or Disagree: 20

]]>By: Richard Stabonehttp://fiveouncesofpain.com/2013/08/13/eddie-alvarez-michael-chandler-ii-booked-for-bellator-ppv/#comment-299822
Wed, 14 Aug 2013 03:51:23 +0000http://fiveouncesofpain.com/?p=82990#comment-299822This was the likely outcome all along… glad it’s finally resolved. As I said from the get-go business isn’t always pretty but it doesn’t need to be. Eddie and Bellator can move forward and help each other succeed. And this is a fantastic fight that every MMA fan should be excited about. Chandler is obviously really damn good, but beating Alvarez twice is a tall order. He’ll be like a bat outta hell after this whole ordeal, on top of the natural motivation to avenge the earlier loss, so I think he’ll be too much for Chandler to handle this time around and should eventually set up an epic trilogy. Perhaps I’m getting a little ahead of things.

As for the contract stuff, I’d imagine the original terms matched from the UFC deal stuck. That had all the guaranteed terms like the signing bonus, escalating pay scale and win bonus, potential PPV bonus, etc. The UFC could have avoided the PPV bonus and instead dumped that into a massive signing bonus that Bellator couldn’t possibly have matched, but that would have set a precedent that other fighters/potential free agents could have used as leverage down the road in negotiations with the UFC. So the UFC made their play, Bellator was able to match it, and here we are. Can’t wait for the fight.

Agree or Disagree: 00

]]>By: Brendhan Conlanhttp://fiveouncesofpain.com/2013/08/13/eddie-alvarez-michael-chandler-ii-booked-for-bellator-ppv/#comment-299821
Wed, 14 Aug 2013 03:50:54 +0000http://fiveouncesofpain.com/?p=82990#comment-299821AO – You have to see it from a business perspective rather than through the eyes of a knowledgeable fan. Rampage-Tito are both mainstream names, not to mention former UFC champions. Bellator/Viacom’s goal is to draw as many PPV buys as possible so catering to casual fans is the smart move. Then, as a result, more people end up seeing the superior scrap between Alvarez-Chandler and potentially become regular viewers as opposed to folks who only want to see big names, washed up may they be.

Agree or Disagree: 31

]]>By: AlphaOmegahttp://fiveouncesofpain.com/2013/08/13/eddie-alvarez-michael-chandler-ii-booked-for-bellator-ppv/#comment-299816
Tue, 13 Aug 2013 22:10:45 +0000http://fiveouncesofpain.com/?p=82990#comment-299816So two washed up fighters get main event over a title fight? Makes sense. Also I’m not certain, but my guess is that Eddie just dropped the charges and accepted bellator’s contract, since in it the stipulation was that he got an instant rematch for the belt.

]]>By: Angry Mikehttp://fiveouncesofpain.com/2013/08/13/eddie-alvarez-michael-chandler-ii-booked-for-bellator-ppv/#comment-299813
Tue, 13 Aug 2013 21:44:01 +0000http://fiveouncesofpain.com/?p=82990#comment-299813I’ve been out of the loop for a while. Has there been any discussion about the settlement or outcome of the litigation? Eddie’s back in Bellator, but on what terms?

Agree or Disagree: 10

]]>By: fanoftna33http://fiveouncesofpain.com/2013/08/13/eddie-alvarez-michael-chandler-ii-booked-for-bellator-ppv/#comment-299810
Tue, 13 Aug 2013 21:12:41 +0000http://fiveouncesofpain.com/?p=82990#comment-299810No Tito vs Rampage is still the main event of the PPV but to mma fans this is the main event. Still like I said earlier they have earned the right to be on the card just not the top billing at this stage in there careers.